FROM: The Greek Community of Megarovo, Tirnovo and Nizopolis {Pelagonia, between Big Prespa and Monastiri}

TO: The Patriarch of Constantinople

“Your Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch,

We have been aware of the memorandum submitted on December the 22nd to the Ambassador of H.M. the Queen of Britain to the Sublime Porte {the Sultan } by the Greek Orthodox community of Monastiri versus the lies regarding Macedonia

expressed by journalists in Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, regarding the would-be Macedonians and representatives of Macedonia as a whole we starkly share the official disproval, accomplished with this memorandum, of the publications in European Newspapers by the Belgian publicist Emile Lavelay and the Russian Ms Novicof on Macedonia, called third part of Bulgaria

and against the rallies orginised by the would-be Macedonians in Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, and against all of the malicious solicitations of the panslavistic comitates in these and other countries, and having already protested after the inclusion of parts of Macedonia in Bulgaria according to San Stefano treaty, as we already forsee that the panslavistic comitates shall not cease acting for the complete slavification and occupation of Macedonia and sending in Macedonia gangs of banditguerrilas {sic} trained in Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia to achieve their goals,

we proclaim that we reject with indignation the present and future intrigues and officially protest :

1. Against publications in European Newspapers by the Belgian publicist Emile Lavelay and the Russian Ms Novicof attributing a wholly Bulgarian nature to Macedonia, and we proclaim that they are unsubstancial lies, intending only to mislead the public opinion and achieve the conquest goals of panslavism acting via its forces in Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia.

2. Against those who present themselves as Macedonians and would-be representatives of the totality of Macedonia in Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia and using Macedonia’s name organise rallys and send plaints to the European Powers asking for the unification of Macedonia with Bulgaria, we squarely denounce these rallys and we consider all of their plaints invalid, because not only the Greek element in Macedonia itself outnumbers the created Bulgarian one, but along with the Ottoman element it forms an absolute majority and therefore any unification of Macedonia with Bulgaria is unthinkable.

3. We protest against the action taken by the panslavistic comitates and their banditguerrilas groups (…)

4. Being genuine Macedonians and willing to remain so in the future, by the means of our Greek language which we utilise in our commercial transactions and exclusively use in our schools and Churches, having nothing in common with the Bulgarians and fake Macedonians beyond the Aimos ( Balkan ) and the Rhodopi regarding our ethnic language and identity,

we flatly denounce the totality of their chimaeric ideas and willings to unite Macedonia with Bulgaria.

Having redacted and signed the present protestation memorandum we send it to your Divine and Respectable Holiness by our Archpriest Pelagonias Matthew, (…)

Kissing your Holiness we the undersigning

In Monastiri the 7th of January, 1885Faithful children of your Divine Holiness
Orthodox Greeks and subjects of the Sublime Porte